Scars
by Grac3
Summary: Part seven of the Angel!Verse. The Doctor gets to have one last adventure with Rose before he has to send her back to the parallel universe with a human version of himself who steals Donna away from him as well. Episode tag: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End (re-write). 9th Doctor Duplicate.


******A.N.:** I had a bit of trouble with this one, because I hadn't watched The Stolen Earth/Journey's End for a while, and I forgot just how important the Doctor's hand is to the story, but because he never regenerated at the end of The Parting of the Ways, he never lost his hand in the sword fight with the Sycorax, so I had to think of something else... Luckily, I did (while I was praying; thank You Jesus) so I hope it works...

**Series summary: **The TARDIS doesn't always take the Doctor where he wants to go, but it always takes him where he needs to go; Time Lords hold a secret behind their backs, and they have a duty to follow.

**Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who (or the lines from Journey's End)**

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The universe had been saved once again. They had stopped Davros and the Daleks from detonating their Reality Bomb, and now he only had to take Jackie and Rose home – back to the parallel universe.

When Donna had first said the words 'Bad Wolf' to him, back in the Shan Shen marketplace, he almost hadn't dared to believe that he could have the chance to see Rose again. He had left her behind in that parallel world so long ago, the gap across the Void having sealed itself shut once he had dealt with the Racnoss. Circumstances had once again intervened to prevent him from finishing his sentence to Rose.

Yet it would seem that the same woman who had been the reason that he had missed Rose the last time was there to greet Rose back to their home universe.

The Doctor had been facing the other way when Donna had told him that Rose was there; he had turned, disbelieving, to see his pink and yellow girl standing just a hundred yards away down the darkened street, separated from him only by abandoned cars and debris from the Dalek invasion of this part of the country rather than the entirety of the Void. Her yellow hair had shone out from the darkness, and he could see her smile even from this far away.

So he had _run_. He had bolted off in her direction as fast as he could, desperate to hold her in his arms once more, to wrap his wings around her and kiss her and tell her – _finally_…

But he had been so focused on Rose that he hadn't noticed the Dalek until it was too late, until it had shot him and sent him screaming to the ground. He had been out of it when Rose rushed over, tears in her eyes as she begged him not to die – and he really didn't want to, but he didn't think he would be able to hold on.

Then Jack was there, with another massive gun like the one Rose had been holding, and he destroyed the Dalek that had shot him. The Doctor had blacked out while Rose and Donna carried him into the TARDIS, only to awaken in agony on the metal grating. He had only been able to force himself to his feet once Jack had taken Rose to the side, and the regeneration energy began to glow around his hand.

He had wondered, on the Game Station, if he would regenerate if he was shot by a Dalek – it seemed that he now had his answer.

He looked over at his three companions, transfixed by Rose's tear-stained face. She had been so scared of him regenerating, it was so harsh that they had been reunited after all this time only to have her worst fear about him realised…

But then he noticed that she had something in her hand. He couldn't see it properly through the haze of the golden energy as it surrounded him, but he concentrated on that single object, trying to discern what it was, until he felt his slowing hearts leap when he finally worked out what it was.

His memory flashed back to the awful moment when he had lost Rose, when one of his red feathers had been ripped from his wing by the wind sucking the Daleks and the Cybermen coated with 'Void stuff' into the bridge in the wall of Torchwood London. His scream had made Rose let go of the switch and begin falling towards the Void, but she was heavier than the feather, and had been moving faster. The feather had collided with her, sticking to her hoodie when Pete grabbed her and stopped her from disappearing into the Void. It had gone to the parallel universe with his pink and yellow girl.

And it was in her hand right now.

The Doctor waited until the regeneration energy fixed the damage done by the Dalek, and then focused the residual energy on the feather in Rose's hand.

He heard her yelp, but the sound was muffled to him as he concentrated on redirecting the regeneration energy, and he saw the feather fall from her hand onto the floor. When all of the golden energy was gone, he gasped and stumbled, still in this body and still with the Northern accent, the red feather glowing gold for a few moments before it settled down again to its usual red colour.

But then they were being taken aboard the Crucible, and Donna was still trapped inside the TARDIS that Davros was going to destroy, and then she was dead, but she wasn't – the TARDIS came back, with a Meta-Crisis version of himself that was wearing a different jumper to him and didn't have a leather jacket on because he only had one leather jacket and that was the one that he was wearing.

Then Donna was the Doctor Donna, a human-Time Lord Meta-Crisis created by the regeneration energy in the feather that Rose had brought back from the parallel world: the one that had saved his life, the one that she had dropped and left on the floor of the TARDIS when they had been invited to an audience with Davros. Donna stopped the bomb, the knowledge inside her head unlocked by the electric pulse that Davros had shot at her.

The three of them – the Doctor, the Doctor Donna, and the Meta-Crisis – sent back the other planets to their rightful position, but Earth still hadn't moved and they needed to tow it back into position. So the Doctor piled everyone into the TARDIS, but the Meta-Crisis stayed behind to destroy the Daleks that Davros had created – to commit genocide – and the Doctor tried to save Davros, but the Kaled refused: he chose to die and pour his blood out on the Doctor's hands so that it joined that of Jabe and Lynda and the Face of Boe and Professor River Song – whoever she actually was – and all the others who had died for him over the years.

But he didn't have time to mourn all of them all over again, because Earth was still in the wrong place and that needed to be fixed.

So they took it back, the entire planet, and he and Rose found out that Gwyneth – that poor girl from 1860s Cardiff – had had relatives that had prospered, and that had resulted in that brave woman from Torchwood who was one of Jack's best friends.

He had taken everyone back to their own times, one after the other – and Ricky had decided to stay in this universe, and honestly, when would he just make up his mind about which parallel universe he wanted to spend his days in?

Then there were only two people left to return.

Well, actually, there were three.

The door to the parallel universe was still open, and they had to go back. For one thing, it wouldn't be fair on Jackie to leave her here to let him and Rose carry on as normal, especially now that she had been reunited with her husband, and even though the two of them had had their differences over the years, she still had taken a great risk in coming across the universe just to make sure that Rose was safe – and that was something that the Doctor would always appreciate.

He parked the TARDIS back in Bad Wolf Bay, and watched as Jackie, Rose and the Meta-Crisis walked out of the door.

"Oh, fat lot of good this is!" he heard Jackie complain from outside, and he had to resist the urge to pull the three of them back into the TARDIS and take them back to his universe before the doorway between them closed again, and he could spend the rest of his life with Rose.

Except it wouldn't be the rest of his life – it would be the rest of _her_ life, and no matter which way he looked at it, that would always be unfair on her. He could fix that problem in a few moments, no matter how much of a sacrifice it would be for him.

"Back of beyond," Jackie continued. "Bloody Norway. I'm gonna have to phone your father."

"Hold on, this is the parallel universe," Rose commented, as the Doctor and the Doctor Donna followed the three of them out of the TARDIS.

"Yeah," the Doctor informed her, stopping a few feet outside the doors of the TARDIS and folding his arms over his chest; the gap was closing, and it wouldn't do to be too far away from the ship otherwise they would all be trapped in this parallel universe. "It is."

"And the walls of the world are closing again," the Doctor Donna said cheerfully, though the Doctor knew that her happiness was due to her newfound knowledge rather than the fact that the Doctor was once again going to be separated from the love of this life of his – because if there was anyone in the entire universe, both his own and Pete's world, that knew just how much the Doctor loved Rose, then it was Donna; Rose herself certainly had no idea, because he'd never been able to tell her. "Now that the Reality Bomb never happens," she continued. "It's dimensional retroclosure. See, I really get this stuff now."

"No, but…" Rose began, facing the Doctor and the Doctor Donna; Jackie and the Meta-Crisis were further along the beach, and Rose had her back to them. "I spent all that time trying to find you, I'm not going back now."

The Doctor didn't want her to go back; he really didn't want her to. But he knew – and the Doctor Donna knew – that she had to stay here.

"You have to," he told her. "I'm sorry, but you have to. Everything might be alright now, but we paid a price of saving the universe: him." He gestured towards the Meta-Crisis with an inclination of his head. "He destroyed all the Daleks, and that was genocide. If he's left on his own, bad things will happen, and believe me, I know, because before we met, I was just like him: all blood and anger and revenge, and I did things that I don't like thinking about."

Rose looked away briefly as tears filled her eyes – tears that hadn't disappeared by the time she looked back over at him once more.

"But you saved me," he continued, "and now you can do the same for him."

Rose sniffed tearfully. "But he's not you."

The Doctor smiled sadly over at her. "I've lived a long time, and I've had loads of lives and loads of faces, and each one of those lives, and each one of those faces had their own defining feature. But this one… this life, and this face, is defined by one single thing: I need Rose Tyler." He nodded over at the Meta-Crisis again. "And so does he. It doesn't get more 'me' than that."

Rose didn't offer a response, and the Doctor Donna was the next one to speak.

"But it's better than that, though. Don't you see what he's trying to give you?" She looked over at the Meta-Crisis. "Tell her, go on."

Rose followed the Doctor Donna's gaze to the Meta-Crisis, who was standing there with a rather indignant look on his face. He sighed, and looked down at Rose.

"Well…" he began, "I look like him. Same ears." He reached up to his ears and flicked the lobes with his index fingers, then let his hands drop back down to his sides, "and I think like him, and sound like him. I still remember taking your hand in that basement; I still remember when we had to hop for our lives. The only thing is, I haven't got wings – or a second heart."

"Which means?" Rose asked.

"It means I'm part human," the Meta-Crisis explained. "It means I'll age, and I'll never regenerate. I only have one life, and I would spend it with you if you'll let me."

"You'll gr-grow old a-at the same time as me?" Rose stammered, her voice thick and disbelieving.

"Yes," the Meta-Crisis nodded, and the Doctor had to hold back a smile at that, because the nod and the 'yes' that the Meta-Crisis had just given her was the same nod and the same 'yes' that he himself had given Rose all that time ago, back when she had first asked him if he was an alien, back before they had really known each other yet and back when they had still been running away from Autons together while he tried to track the Nestene signal with a plastic Ricky head in the TARDIS – and if that didn't convince Rose that the Meta-Crisis was the same person as him, then nothing in two whole universes ever would.

Rose let out a single sob, walking slowly up to the Meta-Crisis and placing her hand on the left side of his chest, feeling his single heart. She then moved her hand to the other side, letting out a small gasp when she realised that there was no throbbing heartbeat in that side of his chest, and that everything he had said had been true.

She had just lowered her hand when the TARDIS wheezed behind them. They all turned to it, and the Doctor Donna gave the Doctor a sad look, because she knew what that meant – because he knew what that meant.

"We have to go," he announced. "This universe is gonna seal itself off forever." He gave Rose, the Meta-Crisis and Jackie a quick nod before he turned away; he didn't think that he could bare to go through another goodbye like the one that he had had when he had last been at Bad Wolf Bay.

"But-" he heard Rose say behind him, and he wished that she hadn't because he couldn't go back to the TARDIS if Rose was still speaking to him. He turned back to Rose to see that she had made her way over to him, and was only a few feet away. "It's still not right," she continued, "cause the Doctor's… still you."

The Doctor wished that she wasn't making it this difficult for him to leave, because he needed to leave and she needed to stay and it wasn't easy as it was.

"But I'm him as well."

Rose sighed, obviously exasperated, but she seemed determined and it would never do to get in the way of a determined Rose Tyler.

"Alright," she nodded, straightening herself up to her full height. "Both of you, answer this."

The Meta-Crisis walked over, so that Rose was standing between the two of them.

"When I last stood on this beach, on the worst day of my life, what was the last thing you said to me?" she asked, looking at the Doctor the entire time because she still didn't believe that the Meta-Crisis was him as well and that would never do.

"'Rose Tyler'," the Doctor answered truthfully.

"Yeah, and how was that sentence gonna end?"

The Doctor sighed. He needed to persuade her to go, to stay here with the Meta-Crisis and let him and the Doctor Donna leave, and she would never do that if he finished that sentence for her. As much as he wanted to say those words, he would never get the chance to; Rose would hear them from the Meta-Crisis' lips, but never his own.

"Rose, don't tell me you don't know," he begged, and she seemed to understand, for she finally turned to the Meta-Crisis and asked him the same question.

The Meta-Crisis gave the Doctor a quick look, almost as though he was asking permission to finish that sentence that the Doctor himself had been thinking about for so long. The Doctor granted it with a small nod that Rose didn't see because she was looking the other way.

The Meta-Crisis reached out to Rose's shoulder and leaned down to her ear, whispering those three little words that the Doctor had been longing to tell her for so long. He tried to pull back, but Rose didn't let him; she grabbed him by the front of his jumper and pulled him down to her level – much like she had done back in the TARDIS after she had woken up after being the Bad Wolf – and crushed his lips to hers.

The Doctor looked away, unable to handle seeing Rose kiss another man – even if the other man was still technically him. His eyes caught the Doctor Donna's, which were full of sympathy as she gestured to the TARDIS. They headed for the blue box while Rose was still distracted, and the Doctor rushed to the controls to take them back to their universe before the realities closed themselves off from each other.

But the heartache wasn't over for the Doctor, because he still had the Doctor Donna to sort out. She smiled and laughed and talked about the swaying mountains of Felspoon, and she sounded like him because that was how he talked; because she was the Doctor Donna – but she wasn't Donna.

They both knew what was coming, and he hated to have to do it, but it would be selfish to let Donna die just so he could keep a best friend who was as sassy as he was. So he took her memories and took her back to her mum and to Wilf, and told them what had happened to her and how she could never remember any of their adventures together.

Then Donna was awake and standing in the doorway, and there was no recognition in her eyes, and that was awful, because even Jamie and Zoe remembered their first adventures with him, but Donna didn't remember any of it; not Pompeii, not the Library, not that glorious moment when she was the most important woman in the entire universe and had saved all of reality at the cost of herself.

So he gave her a fake name and went to leave, but he was distracted by her talking on the phone as he passed the kitchen where she was getting herself a drink.

"How thick d'you think I am? Planets? Tell you what that was; that's those two for one lagers you get down the offy because you fancy that little bloke in there with the goatee." She laughed then: that loud, raucous laugh that grated on his nerves but that he would miss so much. "Yes you do! I seen ya!"

"Donna?" he asked tentatively, and she turned back to face him and once again she had no idea who he was. "I was just going."

"Yeah. See you," she said distractedly, before turning away and continuing her phone conversation.

_No, you won't_, the Doctor thought bitterly as he made for the front door, trying to forget what he had just seen.

Donna's shirt had had a strange back: it was made from a strip of material that was the same shape as a concave lens, which exposed her shoulders to the world – and exposed the marks that were now there. The Doctor Donna had not had wings – she had been more human than Time Lord, after all – but she had had the impression of wings: two wing-shaped marks on her back that looked as though she had been branded with them, or perhaps as though they had been tattooed on.

Now that she was no longer the Doctor Donna, but simply Donna, those marks had gone, replaced with two scars on either side of her back: a reminder to the world that she had once been the most important woman in the entire universe – a reminder to all but her.

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**A.N.2:** I couldn't resist putting the reference to Born Again in there...

**A.N.3:** We're nearly at the end of Ten's era: next up is The End of Time Part 2.

**UPDATE 11/07/14:** The next part of the Angel!Verse, Thanks for the Adventure, is up now.


End file.
